For the Ukrainian Gastronomic Sisterhood, participation in the Toruń Taste Festival was an intense and rewarding experience — from hands-on cooking to public conversations.

Day one — preparation.
Together with Liolia Landa, we worked at full pace: shopping for ingredients, peeling more onions than we care to count, six hours of Eisik fleish, a large pot of “professor’s borshch,” dough set to ferment for yurashky, and hundreds of small dumplings shaped by hand. A day of kitchen discipline, teamwork, and brief moments of rest.

Day two — jury work.
We joined the festival jury to taste and discuss the competition dishes. Among the highlights were guinea fowl fillet, a vegan “herring” made from mushrooms, and cabbage dumplings so convincing we initially thought they contained meat. A day of attentive tasting and professional exchange.

Day three — public event.
A lecture-tasting followed by many questions from the audience and an open conversation about Ukrainian cuisine. The central idea of our presentation was Lviv-style gingerbread (pirnyky) as both spice and sweet — especially meaningful to present in Toruń, a city known worldwide for its gingerbread tradition.

We return tired, but genuinely satisfied. Our sincere thanks for the invitation and support, and for the elegant moderation of our event. As Liolia put it: “See you in Toruń next year!”

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